


36 Degrees

by h_ou_se



Category: NCT (Band), WayV (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Anxiety, Assault, Attempted Sexual Assault, Blood, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Cuddling & Snuggling, Finger Sucking, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Oral Fixation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Separation Anxiety, Sharing a Bed, Teething, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h_ou_se/pseuds/h_ou_se
Summary: On his way home, in an attempt to save a life, Jeno accidentally becomes responsible for somebody else in a way that he is totally unprepared for. Completely out of his depth, Jeno goes to his hyungs for help.Cue lots and lots of fluffy cuddles and a(n) (un)healthy amount of angst.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Original Female Character(s), Lee Taeyong/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	36 Degrees

Sometimes you try really really really hard to do the right thing, while that is always admirable sometimes the consequences of an action don’t match up with the intentions and an already bleak situation can only be made worse. 

Jeno was trying to do the right thing when he heard a loud scream and the ugly smell of fear clogging up his sinuses. Somewhere along the way things had obviously gone wrong though, because now he stood at the door of the 5th floor apartment with both him and the body wrapped up in his arms covered in a mixture of multiple peoples blood. 

~·~

~ 40 minutes earlier ~

The wind would have felt cold and biting to anybody else had they been leisurely wandering along the empty street in just the thin hoodie and jeans Jeno was currently adorned with. Jeno was still relatively young for a vampire so while mortal things like temperature, breathing and water were technically no longer an issue for him, Jeno still occasionally found himself shivering when it snowed or taking ragged breaths after a workout. Doyoung had explained that many young vampires found the unconscious actions comforting in their youth but would grow to forget them in time. He had encouraged Jeno to enjoy those familiar reflexes while they were still so ingrained in his mind. 

That is what Jeno was thinking about as he rubbed along his arms feeling the little bumps and the thin hair stood up straight to attention. It had been a long time since he was outside the nest at night alone, it was only in the last decade or so that he had been allowed to go out unsupervised at all.

Over the last few years many of the rules the 1877 line had been given after they were first turned had grown redundant, not only were they now allowed out of the nest unsupervised but with their increasing resistance to the sun for the first time in nearly 150 years they were able to go out during the day. There was also the matter of feeding, in the past they weren’t allowed to hunt without their sires and every time they did feed whether it was from a human or a blood bag, how much they drank, how fast they drank it, what time it was, every detail was recorded. 

Jeno wished that he could say that feeding was no longer an issue for him, but that would not be the truth. It had probably been close to 20 years since Renjun, Donghyuk and Jaemin had stopped recording the details of their feedings, recently even Yangyang and Chenle had been allowed to forgo the formality. Renjun, Donghyuk, Jaemin and himself had all been turned at the same time, Yangyang and Chenle were turned a full 13 and 27 years after them respectively, so Jeno had always thought it a little unfair how every time he went to feed, someone, usually one of the oldest members, would patiently sit with him to supervise. 

Jeno wanted to argue and insist that he was capable of looking after himself, but the truth was never quite that simple. 

It had become apparent from almost the moment of his creation that Jeno lacked possibly the most fundamental hallmark of being a vampire. The insatiable and almost torturous hunger. 

In the beginning nobody thought it was a problem, if anything it was viewed more as a blessing. It meant Jeno was a little less unhinged, erratic, dangerous than his same aged nest mates and he had been given more freedoms because of that. It had quickly become a problem though when Jeno started going days and sometimes weeks without feeding. 

In their first few months most nestlings require feeding twice a day, progressively, as self control grows they would feed less and less, until after a couple of years they would feed only every 10 days or so. 

Their sires had always relied on the nestlings to tell them when they were hungry. This was never a problem and mostly consisted of Taeyong telling Jaemin for the uptenth time that, no he was not allowed another blood bag 20 minutes after his first, and, no, no amount of aegyo would change that. It had however quickly proven ineffective for Jeno, when only a month into his undead life, while Renjun and Donghyuk were still fighting tooth and bone to get a blood bag just a few minutes faster than any other day, Jeno was going an easy 3 weeks without even a drop passing his lips. 

Jeno accidentally starving himself for weeks on end when his body was still young enough to require blood multiple times a day had been the initial and driving motivation for the hyungs focus and documentation of his feeding habits, but it was when it became clear Jeno’s inability to tell when he was hungry was endangering not only himself but everybody around him that things got serious. 

Jeno’s oddity was not in fact that he lacked the insatiable and torturous hunger of a vampire, because that insatiable and torturous hunger was still alive a well inside him, only it liked to hide most of the time, jumping out to traumatise and enact horrific things when it did decide to show its face. 

The nest was first made aware of this when Yuta suggested that possibly the adrenaline and thrill of a hunt would help awaken Jeno’s hunger. 

Yuta was correct. 

When met with the image of, the smell of, the taste of, an overwhelming amount of blood flowing from the many wounds decorating the paling skin of the people he and his sire had just toyed with then murdered Jeno had very nearly fallen into a blood rage. He had drank and drank until he physically couldn’t hold any more blood down, vomiting it back up only to lick it back down as he tore into the flesh of his victims like a rabid dog or black bear. It was a gruesome sight that had traumatised Jeno for a long time after the fact and cemented the idea that Jeno’s meals were something to be carefully monitored. 

After months of testing his limits and triggers it was eventually determined that as long as Jeno avoided large amounts of uncontrolled blood and his meals stayed on a regular schedule the events of that day would not be repeated. And thankfully they hadn’t. There had of course been the occasional slip up, but one of the hyungs had always been there to talk him down and things were never allowed to get out of control. 

Jeno was violently torn from his thoughts by a shrill scream and nauseating smell of fear clawing its way up his nose then down his throat. 

He hesitated momentarily as the memory of Taeyong, Johnny and Doyoung reminding a barely 6 month old Renjun, Donghyuk, Jaemin and himself that bad things couldn’t always be stopped and sometimes it was for the best just to let them unfold as they would. Jeno also remembers the disgusted looks on Donghyuk and Jaemin’s faces and the subsequently affronted lecture Renjun tried to give them on responsibility.

It was only a very brief hesitation before Jeno was running with all the vampiric speed he had in the direction of the dimly lit side street the scream had been heard from. 

Even with his heightened sense of sight it had been initially unclear what he was watching and Jeno had had to pause his movements momentarily to determine what the confusing arrangement of limbs and blood ment. It had not taken long however before the gravity of the situation hit him and he was once again moving to rip the three large men from the small body they had pinned between them. 

The men, likely due to the adrenaline coursing through their veins, seemed to take no note of the unnatural strength in which Jeno flung them, quickly standing back up to fight off what looked to them like a kid out of his depth. 

It quickly became apparent though that Jeno was not the one out of his depth when the man trying to get him in a headlock was hurled to the ground followed with an unhealthy crack and moan of pain. 

The two remaining men gave a brief glance between their friend, the body they had left crumbled against a wall and then finally settled their gazes on Jeno as they started stepping back slowly with their arms raised. 

“Hey kid it’s okay, it’s okay. You can have her, you can have her, she’s yours now!” The man barely had time to finish his sentence before Jeno’s fist was colliding with his jaw, the next sound leaving his mouth being a screeching howl of pain as his head hit the ground. 

Jeno would have chased after the third man as he hightailed out of the like a scared bunny, but his attention was drawn away from him by a choked sob sounding from a small body huddled against a wall. 

Being careful not to make much sound Jeno slowly stepped closer, squatting down to seem less intimidating like he would with a cat. 

“Hey there.” Jeno said awkwardly, not entirely sure what he was supposed to do now. 

The body uncurled slightly to allow a head to poke up and two dark blue eyes to stare tearly up at him. Jeno tried to give a reassuring smile as he stepped closer and reached out his hand. 

“I can see your hurt. Do you want me to call the ambulance?” He couldn’t actually see the damage, but the heady smell of blood had flooded his senses the moment he entered the street. 

Jeno watched as the tearful eyes flashed with fear, startled when the small body suddenly spun to face him. “No! No! Please don’t want ambulance!” 

Despite the words coming from who he could now see was a foreign-looking girl, the knife laying off to the side, the way her body was curled around her stomach and the red coating her hands, arms, shirt and the ground below her, painted another picture. Jeno was no doctor, but he was very familiar with blood and blood loss, what caused it and what it looked like. The ashen pallor to her skin and its clammy almost sweaty sheen coupled with the unsteady, rushed breathing and her obvious difficulty lifting and moving her head and body told Jeno all he needed to know. 

One, she would probably pass out within the next 2 minutes and two, she would probably die within the next 15 minutes. 

Jeno opened his mouth to push the idea of an ambulance, but quickly shut it when her body began to sway to the side and he had to catch her before she toppled into the ground. 

Jeno’s words caught in his throat when the new position finally gave him a clear view of the girl's blood soaked stomach. Maybe 15 minutes was being generous, regardless of whether an ambulance was called she would die before they got there. 

In a last ditch attempt to try and preserve her life, Jeno harshly bit into his wrist, deep enough for blood to immediately start pouring out. He pressed his steadily bleeding limb to the girl's mouth, which was opened slightly to release occasional moans and sobs of pain. 

Unsurprisingly, the girl’s first reaction to Jeno’s bloodied arm was to try and push it from her face, Jeno continued to hold it firmly to her mouth though, stroking her hair and giving her gentle words of encouragement until she began to suck at the blood pouring from the wounds on his wrist. 

Jeno had never tried to heal somebody with his blood before, the only people he really interacted with were other vampires so there had never been an occasion that called for it. He did however, distinctively recall being quickly hurried out of the apartment by a distressed looking Ten as the small body of a child was rushed past them in the arms of a bruised, but quickly healing Johnny. Jeno remembered hearing Taeyong’s voice sound through their home as Hendery and himself were pulled out the door by Ten. “Quickly he’s dying!” … “I think we can still heal him.” … “Blood! Blood! Feed him your blood!” 

Jeno sat with the girl in his lap, pulled up to his chest and mouthing at his arm for only a short while until the scene before him started to register. Suddenly Jeno was becoming all too aware of the pool of cooling blood he was sat in, aware of the blood that had once soaked only the girl but was now quickly absorbing into his grey hoodie, aware of the cold tendrils of hunger creeping up his spine as his eyes peered over the girls head to settle on the two bloodied bodies before them. Bodies Jeno had put there. Jeno’s bodies. Jeno’s kills. Jeno’s Jeno’s Jeno’s. Mine mine Mine. MINE. 

Jeno barely had time to register what he was doing before the overwhelming taste, smell, sound, texture of fresh warm addictive blood rushed his senses. Before his fangs were burying themselves deep in the prone neck of the girl curled into his arms. 

While he loathed to admit it, the truth was that Jeno had never once had control over his hunger. It was unpredictable and rarely came out. Every time it had Doyoung had also been there to squash it, control it, tame it. As his sire Doyoung’s influence over Jeno was unmatched, even by Jeno’s own body’s will to survive. 

The bond between sire and childe was incomparable to anything in the natural world. An animal lives to survive, to pass on its genetic material, a vampire exists to serve its sire. Once a bond has formed, childe and sire are no longer separate in any way, the essence of their beings weaved so closely that nothing but death could sever it. A bond could be weakened by time and distance, but the feeling of another being being tied to your soul was always there. 

It was that feeling of another being moulding itself to him, the acute sensations felt only through a bond that tugged Jeno from the depths of his hunger. Jeno was used to the feeling of Doyoung influencing his hunger through their bond, whether it be the reminder that he should feed after a worryingly long time without or Doyoung pulling him back up as he very nearly fell into a blood rage. This feeling was different however, there was no control, it was tentative and weak, vying for his approval as it hesitantly wound its way through him. It was not the feeling of his sire reaching down to him, but of a childe reaching up to him, his childe reaching up to him. 

It was that realisation that had Jeno’s eyes flashing open, immediately turning to stare down to the unmoving body cradled in his arms. 

A childe. His childe. 

Maybe they were sire and childe in a technical sense, but in a practical sense the bond between them was far too weak, more fragile than Jeno thought a bond could ever be. Jeno’s venom, the magic that flowed through his veins and the pillar that should hold them together was still young and undeveloped, there was not enough of it to fully turn a vampire or cement the bond a baby vampire required to survive. 

The possessive sparks that flew through him at the thought of what would happen when the small body laid out in his arm would wake up caused Jeno to pull her ever closer to his chest, resisting the urge to once again bury his fangs in her body just to bring them closer if nothing else. 

As a half turned vampire she would be nothing more than a danger to everybody involved. She’d crave blood like any other vampire, but would lack the functions necessary to make use of it. As a half-blood she would only grow hungrier and hungrier, without a solid bond with her sire, there would be nobody to stop the blood rage when it happened, regardless of how much she fed the hunger would eventually become too much and she’d kill herself if nobody had done so yet. 

Jeno felt hot tears pouring from his eyes at the image of his childe, bloodthirsty and weakened to exhaustion, tearing into her own neck with her small half developed claws, biting and gnawing at her arms with tiny underdeveloped fangs in a futile attempt to ease the torturous and unendurable hunger. 

In that moment Jeno did the only thing he knew to do. He wrapped up the bloodied body of his childe in his arms and ran. He ran as fast as he could to the only people he knew could help. His hyungs.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is largely inspired by Precious Mettle by glitterandgilt, High Hopes for the Living by CryInTheNight and probably a bunch of others that I cant think of right now. 
> 
> It might take a while for the next chapter to come out, but I promise I will not abandon this story without saying anything, just please be patient. 
> 
> Also, English may very well be my first language, but I am extremely dyslexic, so whether you want to be kind or not, I don't care, just keep that in mind.


End file.
